Derrick

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Everything posted by Derrick

  1. Oh, the HARRY POTTER movies are well made, I won't deny that. I've only seen one of them in the theater. The first or second one, I don't remember and while I enjoyed it, it didn't exactly leave me dying for more. The other HARRY POTTER movies I've caught on TV. One thing that amuses me about the whole Potter Phenomenon is how the series, which started off as being targeted for Young Adults has been conscripted by adults. I see the same thing happening with the "Twilight" series. TRANSFORMERS...well, that's another series that is impervious to objective critical discussion. TRANSFORMERS fans are so fanatically close-minded that I don't even talk about it anymore with my friends who are TRANSFORMERS fans. React to TRANSFORMERS with anything less than joyous orgasms and they start foaming at the mouth with rage while their eyes bulge out insanely.
  2. So far movies such as THE HANGOVER, STAR TREK, UP and DRAG ME TO HELL have proven to surprise the studios which made them at how much money they've made so far. Oh, everybody expected a Pixar movie like UP to hit big but even they have been surprised at how it's been embraced by all ages, especially older audiences who have been going back to see it. STAR TREK was a movie that could have went either way but the fact that it simply was a damn good movie helped the word-of-mouth tremendously. The summer's real surprise was THE HANGOVER. Nobody expected that movie to make as much money as it did. And again, the fact that it was an extremely well-made, funny movie helped the word-of-mouth. TERMINATOR SALVATION turned out to be a disappointment and almost has to laugh. Only in Hollywood can a movie make $300 million and still be considered 'a disappointment' Was there anybody out there who honestly didn't think that TRANSFORMERS 2 and HARRY POTTER AND THE SEARCH FOR BIGGER WEEKEND OPENING RECORDS wouldn't make any money? Those movies are totally safe from any kind of critical review as their audiences don't give a penguin's pizzle what anybody says about 'em.
  3. I'm reading it now and it's a fun read. Keep up the good work, yo!
  4. FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS 2004 Universal Directed by Peter Berg Produced by Brian Grazer Screenplay by Peter Berg and David Aaron Cohen Based on the book: “Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Dream And A Team” by H.G. Bissinger I’m not a football guy at all. My sports are baseball, boxing and tennis. I can understand the complexities of Star Trek technobabble or Pre-Crisis DC Comics continuity with no problem but trying to understand the rules of football makes me feel like the village idiot. Oh, if you invite me over to your house to watch a game with you, I’ll show up gladly with the beer and the buffalo wings but the only thing I understand about football is that one guy gets the ball and runs like his ass is on fire while a bunch of other guys try to stop him. So why did I watch FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS which is a football movie? As so often happens I had nothing else to watch on my TiVO. I’d seen every other movie I had saved on it and FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS was the only thing I hadn’t watched. Twenty minutes into the movie I was hooked for a lot a reasons that had nothing to do with football. The movie (based on true incidents) takes place in the Texas town of Odessa where the 1988 high school football season is just beginning for The Permian Panthers and we’re introduced to some the players: Boobie Miles (Derek Luke) is the star of the team. He knows it and isn’t shy about letting everybody else know it. Cut like a mahogany god with a 1000-watt smile and an ego big as an earthquake, he can back up his smack talk with his extraordinary athletic abilities. Quarterback Mike Winchell (Lucas Black) is a young man who has far more responsibility than he should be due to the pressures of winning football games placed on him by the town and his own mother who’s not quite right in the head. Running back Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund) is under the cruel domination of his alcoholic father (Tim McGraw) who was himself was once a star football player and in a lot of ways, never really left high school at all. Chris Comer (Lee Thompson Young) is black, like Boobie and is constantly being harassed by his girlfriend because he’s not a star like Boobie. She keeps nagging at him to make a touchdown for her and he looks as if he’d really like to pop her a good one in the eye. Ivory Christian (Lee Jackson) never says much at all and seems to be observing life with a world weariness that seems more appropriate to a man in his 60’s than a 17 year old kid. Brian Chavez (Jay Hernandez) is a sweet Mexican kid who perhaps doesn’t have the heart to play the game. Especially not in a town like this one. The team’s coach, Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) is under a hellish amount of pressure to win the state championship. He can’t go to the supermarket with his wife and daughter without twenty people asking him; “We going to state? We going to state?” or “Let’s get this done” or “Do what you gotta do, coach” There’s an unspoken threat even behind the most jovial and supportive of declarations that if the team doesn’t bring home the championship, Coach Gaines might just as well start looking for a new job. His wife (Connie Britton) has one of the best lines in the movie when she says: “I’ve been thinking we should move to Alaska. They don’t care about football so much there.” And the whole disturbing dependence of the town on the game and the team is what really got me hooked on the movie. I’m sure there are many citizens of Odessa who lead productively happy lives without giving a rolling doughnut about football but we don’t see any of them here. All of the adults we see in the movie appear to spend their entire waking moment obsessed beyond all reason with a high school football team. Whenever there’s a game, the entire town closes down to attend and the stadium looks about as big as Madison Square Garden. I dunno if it’s really like that in small towns but FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS convinced me that it is. I liked how the movie was told in an almost documentary fashion and didn’t pull any punches as far as showing the good and bad of small town high school football. For a lot of these boys, football is the only way they’re going to get a college education and get out of their town. This is indeed more than just a game to them. For most of them, it’ll define the course of the rest of their lives. This is really brought home when Boobie injures his knee and is told he cannot play any longer. Boobie accuses the MRI technician of taking a bribe from a rival football team to keep Boobie out of a crucial game. Boobie and the uncle who raised him (Grover Coulson) conspire together to keep the true extent of his injury a secret since Boobie depended so much on a football career, his academic skills are dreadfully sub par. But with Boobie out of the game, this means that the rest of the team have to really dig deep and find it in themselves to try and win the big game against Carter High School, a team so fierce and formidable that even their cheerleaders look intimidating. As one of The Permian Panthers says; “They’re too big, too fast, too strong and just downright too nasty.” And the game is a particularly brutal one. These kids get hit so hard you wonder what the hell their bones are made out of. But at least the football games are of realistic dimensions and not like the ones in “Any Given Sunday” where guys were getting teeth and eyes knocked outta their heads on every play. If you’re a football fan you’ve probably seen FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS already and if you haven’t, then you need to rectify that error the next time you’re looking for a movie to rent for Friday or Saturday night. And even if you’re not a football fan, get FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS anyway. It does an excellent job of showing a part of American life that many of us never get to see and I always appreciate a movie that can do that. The performances are really terrific, especially Billy Bob Thornton as the coach and the actors playing the team members do so with conviction. The movie shows the desperate complexities of football being a status symbol in a small town and doesn’t weigh in on one side or the other but just presents the situation and examines how this particular team and their coach handle what to me seemed impossible expectations placed on them by a town obsessed with winning at all costs. An exceptionally good movie on all levels and well worth watching for football fans and non-fans alike. Enjoy. 118 minutes Rated PG-13
  5. I think Hex should look way more disfigured than that. Something like the way Aaron Eckhart looked as Two-Face in "The Dark Knight"
  6. Derrick

    Randomness

    Don't even sweat it. I think that Sarah Silverman is one of the hottest women on the planet. Most of my friends look at me as if I'm crazy when I say if I had a choice between her and Beyonce, I'd take her.
  7. Derrick

    Randomness

    HEAVEN'S GATE is actually a pretty damn good movie.
  8. AMERICAN GANGSTER 2007 Universal Pictures Directed by Ridley Scott Produced by Brain Grazer and Ridley Scott Screenplay by Steve Zaillian Based on the article “The Return of Superfly” by Mark Jacobson This isn’t the first time that Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe have squared off against each other in a movie. Anybody remember the 1995 sci-fi thriller “Virtuosity”? In that one, Denzel Washington was the cop and Russell Crowe was the bad guy, a virtual reality serial killer unleashed on the real world. In the years between “Virtuosity” and AMERICAN GANGSTER both actors have made an impressive amount of really fine films and they’ve both won Best Actor Oscars. Both men have achieved a level of respect and professional achievement that few actors today can claim. And separately just their names are enough to guarantee a big weekend box office. So putting them together again in a movie should assure us of some really outstanding scenes between the two of them since both men have done nothing but get better at their craft since 1995, right? I wish I could say it was so but AMERICAN GANGSTER is a lot like the Robert DeNiro/Al Pacino crime thriller “Heat” or Robert DeNiro/Kevin Costner in “The Untouchables” in that for most of the movie we’re following two separate but intertwined storylines and we have to wait about two hours before we get to what we want to see: the two main actors going at it. It’s worth the wait to finally see Denzel and Russell face to face, trust me on that but the few scenes they have together are so good you can’t help but wish they had more of them. It’s the 1970’s and Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) has inherited the crime empire of his boss, the legendary Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson who has passed away from an unexpected heart attack. Frank doesn’t waste time in consolidating his power. To do this he intends to control the heroin traffic in Harlem by cutting out any and all middlemen and making a deal directly with the supplier. Frank himself flies to Bangkok and with the help of his cousin Nate (Roger Guenveur Smith) a serviceman stationed in Vietnam he strikes a deal for a previously unheard of amount of heroin that is 100% pure. He gives it a brand name: ‘Blue Magic’ and sells his product for half the price of his competitors. Frank brings up his family from North Carolina, including his elderly mother (Ruby Dee) and buys a huge mansion estate for them all to live in. He makes his five brothers his lieutenants and they proceed to make money. A whole lot of money. Ritchie Roberts (Russell Crowe) isn’t having as much fun in his life as Frank is in his. Ritchie’s wife is divorcing him because of his constant womanizing and his single-minded devotion to his job. Ritchie is such an honest cop that he turns in a million bucks without batting an eye. It’s simple for him because he looks at it simply: the money was made illegally. He’s a cop. Cops don’t take illegal money. Haw. Back in the 70’s police corruption in New York was just part of the job. Ritchie is ostracized by his fellow officers and so he jumps at the chance when his boss (Ted Levine) gives him a chance to head up his own squad of Untouchables who will target the high-level drug dealers. No nickel-and-dime dealers. Ritchie’s investigations eventually lead him to Frank Lucas who has managed to stay under the radar for so long because he doesn’t go in for the flashy pimped out lifestyle of his peers like Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) Not Frank. He dresses in conservative business suits and takes his momma to church every Sunday. He doesn’t get high off his own supply and he runs his organization with a professionalism that makes him the gangland equivalent of Donald Trump. Frank intrigues Ritchie who is amazed that a black man could amass so much wealth and power that even old school Mafia kingpins like Dominic Gattano (Armand Assante) give him respect and he’s determined to take Frank down. It’s not going to be an easy job as Ritchie has no idea how Frank is smuggling his product into the United States and there’s a crooked cop (Josh Brolin) who is making life hell for both Frank and Ritchie. The lives of these two men intersect at a very critical juncture in their lives and once they join together their story has a unique twist. AMERICAN GANGSTER works extremely hard at wanting to be an epic crime drama. But I actually think it works more as a character study of the two men, Frank Lucas and Ritchie Roberts. Frank Lucas is a cold-blooded killer who can set a man on fire without blinking and sell heroin to his own people without losing a night’s sleep. But he also provides for his family, instills a (twisted) set of business values and ethics in his brothers and faithfully attends church every Sunday. Ritchie Roberts is a helluva cop who chases bad guys by day and goes to law school at night. He’s also a neglectful father and a lousy husband. Family values is an elusive concept for Ritchie who seems genuinely puzzled that his wife doesn’t accept his womanizing and off-hour association with the lowlife of New York City. I think that director Ridley Scott spends so much time on the separate stories of these two men, both of who are looking for The American Dream in their own way and allows us to examine their moral values and ethical codes and he wants us to make up our minds as to what we think of how they achieve it. Ridley Scott is a strange choice for this type of straight-up crime thriller. I think perhaps the closest he’s come to a movie like this is 1989’s “Black Rain” starring Michael Douglas. Ridley Scott is not the first director you think of when it comes to crime thrillers. In the hands of Martin Scorsese or Carl Franklin I think the movie would have had more bite to it. As it is Scott focuses more on how these two men conduct their business and their relationships to those around them. As a result you’re not going to find over-the-top violence such as in “Scarface” “Goodfellas” or “The Departed”. There is violence, sure. But it’s handled in an almost documentary like manner. Denzel Washington turns in his usual outstanding performance as Frank Lucas. By now we’re all so used to Denzel being so good that it’s no surprise that we’re not able to take our eyes off him when he’s on the screen. He’s getting really good at playing bad guys. And Russell Crowe is easily his equal in acting ability. Separately they create fully realized characters and both men do more in a scene by saying nothing than other actors do with ten minutes of dialog. They’re just that good. And they’re backed up by an equally impressive supporting cast. Ruby Dee has a really splendid scene where she has to talk Frank down from doing something really stupid and the honesty of the scene comes right out of the screen and grabs you by the shoulders. Josh Brolin as Detective Trupo steps up his game considerably. He has scenes with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe and damn if he doesn’t hold his own with the both of them. It’s an impressive acting job he does here. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Common have roles as two of Frank’s brothers. Cuba Gooding, Jr. continues his streak as the most puzzling actor of the decade. Why does this man continue to waste his talent in unfunny so-called comedies when he has such a gift for dramatic roles? His five minutes as Nicky Barnes in AMERICAN GANGSTER beats out the entirety of “Boat Trip” “Rat Race” and “Snow Dogs” all put together. I was puzzled by Joe Morton’s character of Charlie Williams who in appearance is a near dead ringer for Gordon Parks. His character’s relationship to Frank Lucas is never really explained. He shows up every now and then, gives Frank some sage words of wisdom and then he’s gone. And while we’re on the subject the relationship between Frank Lucas and his wife Eva (Lymari Nadal) isn’t all that satisfying either. Despite the scene where Frank goes ballistic on Dominic Gattano when a hit on Frank goes wrong and his wife is almost killed I wasn’t convinced that either of them were ever that much in love with the other. So should you see AMERICAN GANGSTER? If you’re a fan of Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe then you probably already have. And with good reason. Both men are at the top of their game right now and watching them work is truly a pleasure. The supporting cast does their job and backs up the leads superbly. The direction is realistic and not bombastic. And no, I don’t think that AMERICAN GANGSTER is the great crime epic it aspires to be but it is solid entertainment that’s worth your rental fee and your time. 157 minutes Rated R Originally presented in “Derrick Ferguson’s Movie Review Notebook” available from Pulpwork Press http://www.pulpworkpress.com/apps/webstore/
  9. The feature tale is Derrick Ferguson's "The Tale of The Baron's Tribute" -a Fantasy novella - (cover and illos by M. D. Jackson). Also in this ish are " A Little Nest Egg" by Ken Goldman - a creepy horror tale - (illos by Sam deGraff), "Ma Ca Rong" by Jack Mackenzie, an occult investigation by Harlan daVinci set in Viet Nam (illos by G. W. Thomas), "One Last Run, Among the Stars" by Michael Ehart - a space opera with plenty of heart (illos by M. D. Jackson), "Redneck Meatwagon" by Skadi meic Beorh - a futuristic horror tale (illos by Sam deGraff), "Midnight in the Wax Museum" by Orrin Grey is a comedic fantasy (cartoon illos by G. W. Thomas), "Black Sun", a Mythos SF tale by G. W. Thomas (illos by M. D. Jackson) and a Sword & Sorcery novella "Sometimes Death Gods are Merciful" by the master, C. J. Burch. Also a review of Terror Time by William P. Robertson (Pennsylvania's poet laureate) with an interview. http://www.lulu.com/ragemachinebooks
  10. It actually looks like Nancy from Sin City colored differently. All-Star Bats is terrible and is the ultimate "only for the art" book. I couldn't see past the shitty story though so i dropped it. Frank Miller needs to stop. Frank Miller repeatedly said that he never wanted to write Batman again. However DC kept offering him more and more money until it got to the point that Miller would have been crazy not to take the money. So he then set out to write the worst Batman story imaginable, just to see if the fanbys would take the bait. And they did, hook, line and sinker. The saddest thing is that the same Miller fans who defend ALL-STAR BATMAN & ROBIN so vigorously are the very people Miller targeted this elaborate and expensive joke on.
  11. With the exception of THE HANGOVER this summer movie season hasn't done much to get my juices flowing. I'm hoping DISTRICT 9 and INGLORIOUS BASTERDS can turn that around.
  12. Big news this week as we announce our first open-submission anthology, AMAZING ALTERNITY STORIES! Check out the blog for a word from the editor, Tom Deja, and our submissions page for the guidelines. And just as a reminder...our message board is up and running, so feel free to stop in and say hi or start a discussion on any of our fine titles! Finally, if you've got the time, spread the word about PWP to your friends! http://www.pulpworkpress.com/
  13. I'll be looking forward to what the both of you think of it once you're finished.
  14. Derrick

    Episode 98

    If you're looking for a good example of a western/vampire movie rent FROM DUSK TILL DAWN III: THE HANGMAN'S DAUGHTER. It plays as if Sam Peckinpah had decided to film a horror movie. The first 45 minutes or so does play like a straight western until we get to the infamous Titty Twister Bar and we all know what happens to the hapless traveler who decides to stop and have a drink there.
  15. Derrick

    Episode 98

    I'm under that rock, too. Make room for me as well under that rock
  16. Glad to hear it's not boring you!
  17. DEATH PROOF 2007 Dimension Films/Rodriguez International Pictures/Troublemaker Studios Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino Produced by Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Erica Steinberg Once upon a time there was this street in Manhattan. 42end Street. Now before you jump up and say; “It’s still there!” Let me say that no. It’s not. Oh, 42end Street is there. But it’s not there. Give me a minute to explain. Back in the 70’s and 80’s you could go to 42end Street between 7th and 8th Avenue and on both sides on the street there were nothing but movie theaters. Cheap movie theaters that showed double and even triple features. And when I say cheap I mean $2 or $3 bucks. That’s right. You could go see two movies for three lousy dollars and stay in the theater until it closed if you liked. There was this one theater that showed nothing but a triple bill of kung fu movies. The theater that was home to “The Lion King” for many years used to be the raunchiest XXX movie theater in Times Square. These theaters opened early and closed late. Real late. If you had $20 bucks in your pocket you could stay on 42end Street all day long and most of the night cruising from one theater to another until you were all movie-ed out. Of course you shared the theater with potheads, drunks, bottom feeder drug dealers, prostitutes, unemployed men hiding out from the world, teenagers cutting school and their ilk. But if you didn’t mess with anybody they generally didn’t mess with you. Back in the day the rule of thumb was: “don’t start no static, there won’t be none”. The movie theater staff had the same policy. Folks would light up their joints, pass around 40s of malt liquor, pints of cheap booze, smoke cigarettes openly and put their feet up on the backs of the seat in front of them. But as long as they were cool, the management was cool. In short, the environment was as saturated with depravity as the movies shown. The movies that were shown in these theaters, which we now popularly and affectionately refer to as ‘grindhouses’ were far from Academy Award winning films. They were Grade B, C, D and more oftentimes than not, Z exploitation flicks. Blaxplotation. Kung fu flicks. Spaghetti westerns. Horror. Italian ‘giallo’ thrillers. Splatter. Made on the cheap and designed to be nothing more than sensational pulp entertainment most of them you forgot the day after you saw them. Oh, there were exceptions, to be sure and a lot of those movies transcended the trash and are still highly regarded to this day. But the 42end Street of those bad old days is gone forever. I know, I know…people go on and on about it’s ‘safer’ now. It’s ‘cleaner’. It’s more ‘family orientated’ and I’m all for that. I still think it was more fun back then. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez collaborated on a project called “Grindhouse” where they attempted to give modern day movie goers a taste of what the movie going experience was like back then. “Grindhouse” was made up of two complete and separate films on a double bill along with a handful of fake trailers for equally fake films. The two movies, DEATH PROOF and “Planet Terror” were aged and battered to replicate the way films looked back then since those prints were shipped all over the country from theater to theater and not handled with the best of care. So when they were shown on the screen you had all these scratches and more often than not whole sections of film missing and spliced together. “Grindhouse” even made use of vintage 70’s/80’s advertisements and theater announcements. It was all designed to be a Valentine to that entire movie era of gleeful sex, violence and gore. The problem was that a lot of moviegoers didn’t get the joke. I remember reading that audience members were confused by the sections of the movie that had ‘missing reels’ and demanded that they see the missing parts or else they wanted their money refunded. Supposedly there were complaints from theater owners about the 3 hr+ running time of “Grindhouse” Whatever the reason; “Grindhouse” was an ambitious experiment that failed at the box office. However the two movies have been released on DVD as separate features. DEATH PROOF begins with three Austin, Texas girls preparing for a weekend of partying to celebrate the birthday of Jungle Julia (Sydney Poitier) a local disc jockey. Her two best friends Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito) and Shanna (Jordan Ladd) go with her to the Texas Chili Parlor where they’re going to hook up with Julia’s drug connection Lanna (Monica Staggs) and from there it’s on to the lake house owned by Shanna’s rich daddy. But first the girls have planned a wild night of drinking, dancing and making out with some of the local guys (one of them played by writer/director Eli Roth) They also meet up with Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) who claims to be a professional stuntman although he can only credit television shows thirty years old that he supposedly worked on. Stuntman Mike flirts with the girls which earns him a highly erotic lap dance from Arlene who is both intrigued and repelled by the scarred but strangely charming man. Turns out that Stuntman Mike is not only scarred physically but mentally as well since he’s a psychotic sadist who likes killing young woman with his special souped-up 1970 Chevrolet Nova which he proudly boasts is “death proof” as it’s been tricked out so that Stuntman Mike can do things like ram another car head on at 120 miles an hour and survive. Whoever is in the other car isn’t so lucky. Stuntman Mike proceeds to show off just how deadly his “death proof” car is by killing not only the four girls but also a girl he’s tricked into actually riding inside the car (Rose McGowan) in a pair of truly horrific scenes. Cut to fourteen months later. Stuntman Mike is in Tennessee and sizing up four new victims. This time it’s Abernathy (Rosario Dawson) Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) Kim (Traci Toms) and Zoë (Zoë Bell) who are all in the movie business themselves. Zoë is a stuntwoman and wants to do two things; buy a vintage 1970 Dodge Challenger and play a game called “Ship’s Mast” in which Zoë lies on the hood of the car, hanging onto two belts while Kim drives down the highway at high speed. Bad time for them to pick to play this game because Stuntman Mike has been stalking them all day and he decides he wants to play as well. But his idea of a fun game is way different from what the girls have planned. Before it’s all over, everybody will have gotten their share of playing games. DEATH PROOF is a way different movie in style and tone from “Planet Terror” in that where “Planet Terror” takes off at Warp Factor Five right from the first five minutes, DEATH PROOF takes it’s time to build up to the wild car chase that takes up the last fifteen minutes or so. That’s why I advise everybody who plans on seeing these films back-to-back on a single night’s viewing (which is really the way to watch ‘em) to watch DEATH PROOF first, then “Planet Terror” DEATH PROOF takes it’s time telling it’s story and its certainly not boring but Q.T. takes his time in the first half so that we can get to know the first set of girls before the totally terrifying head on collision with Stuntman Mike’s car. Then we’re introduced to the second set of girls and Q.T. takes another half hour with the characterization before we get down to their desperate 100 mile an hour road war. It’s a solid movie full of the patented Tarantino dialog we’ve come to expect and there are extended scenes where it’s nothing but people just talking. But since it’s Tarantino putting the words in their mouths and the actors are so good at what they’re doing I don’t think you’re going to mind a bit. Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson and Zoë Bell are the acting standouts in this one, especially Zoë Bell. She’s a real life stuntwoman who doubled for Lucy Lawless in “Xena” and for Uma Thurman in the “Kill Bill” movies and she’s totally charming here. And that’s really her sliding around on the hood of that Dodge Challenger as it’s roaring down the highway. Tarantino wanted to film a car chase without using CGI at all and it’s a really excellent car chase. I’m glad to see that some filmmakers still like doing some things Old School: Tarantino put real stuntmen inside of real cars and let them do what they do best. Vanessa Ferlito also does terrific work in this movie. She does a mean lap dance and she looks like she could be Rosario Dawson’s younger, sluttier sister. And like all of Tarantino’s movies, the soundtrack is killer. I don’t think there’s a director working today (okay, maybe Martin Scorsese) who uses music in his movies better than Tarantino. The music he uses in his movie isn’t just stuck in there just to fill dead air between dialog scenes. The songs uncannily fit the mood of a scene and get across exactly what emotion Tarantino wants to convey. And I always hear a couple of songs in his movies that I’ve never heard before from artists I assumed I was fairly familiar with. Such as The Coasters song he uses for the lap dance sequence. I’ve been listening to The Coasters since I was knee high to a knee as my father was a huge fan of theirs but I’ve never heard that song before I saw DEATH PROOF. If I have any complaints with DEATH PROOF it’s this: despite Tarantino’s desire to make a grindhouse flick in the style of “Vanishing Point” and “Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry” (both of which are referenced several times by the characters) the movie is way too dialog heavy and far too polished to be considered a true grindhouse flick. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that while “Planet Terror” is by far way more fun to watch, DEATH PROOF is technically the better movie and the one that will most likely stay with you for days afterwards. There’s just more meat on the bones of this one. And that ending is just too abrupt for me. But then again, “Vanishing Point” and “Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry” had similar out-of-left-field-what-the-hell endings and I was able to roll with them so I guess I can roll with this one. So should you see DEATH PROOF? You bet your ass you should. It’s not one of Quentin Tarantino’s best movies but still, a minor flick from Q.T. is better than a lot of directors’ major works. The performances are excellent, that car chase is a doozy and the story is tightly suspenseful. By all means, rent/buy and enjoy. 114 Minutes Rated R
  18. An outstanding review. Well written, entertaining and informative.
  19. I miss ETERNAL CHAMPIONS on the Sega Genesis. I used to lose days playing that game.
  20. Sorry it's been a few weeks folks, but we're still trundling along on the path to self-discovery. Mostly, we're just lazy though. Anyway, word is that Joel Jenkins' NUCLEAR SUITCASE is on the horizon for release, and if you'd be interested in writing a review of the book, please get in touch with us via e-mail or through the message board or forum or whatever that thing is. Also on the good news front, we've gotten a first look at the cover to 2010's LOVE & BULLETS by Percival Constantine (who, while his name sounds like he should be writing paranormal romance novels and his author's photo suggests he should be writing decadent poetry, has instead crafted a butt-to-the-seat action-adventure thriller), as well as a bit of blurbage at our blog to tell us what it's all about... And just as a reminder...our message board is up and running, so feel free to stop in and say hi or start a discussion on any of our fine titles! Finally, if you've got the time, spread the word about PWP to your friends! http://www.pulpworkpress.com/